#30 SÃO PAULO COMPANHIA DE DANÇA

ÉDOUARD LOCK, CASSI ABRANCHES & UWE SCHOLZWITH 14 DANCERS

[EN]Founded in 2008, the São Paulo Dance Company has developed under the artistic direction of Inês Bogéa into one of the most successful dance companies in Latin America, presenting both classical and contemporary international repertoire. The programme is diverse and the dancers dynamic; they connect with the audience through curiosity and the perception of a dance world in motion.

The Seasons, created by choreographer Édouard Lock, uses the images to revitalise the sense memory of dance. Lock, a Moroccan-born Canadian, is dancer, director, filmmaker and photographer, and all of these skills are used to great effect on stage as the audience observes several layers interacting with each other. Each element creates a new meaning for the audience. Every gesture has its counterpart in a movement of light that cuts the space as a live edition of what you see. In this high energy piece of extreme intensity, Lock uses a contemporary dance vocabulary. Gestures oscillate between powerful – sometimes fluid, sometimes angular – and very gentle movements.

For her creation Gen, Cassi Abranches uses the sense memory of the body as well as the impulses of the soundtrack composed by Marcelo Jeneci and Ze Nigro. Abranches acknowledges this as her transition piece from dancer to choreographer; it is rooted in her knowledge as a dancer on stage, yet moves forward to a new beginning. In a Suite for Two Pianos, the late German choreographer Uwe Scholz created movements inspired by the reflections of artist Wassily Kandinsky and Russian musician Sergei Rachmaninoff. Four works by Kandinsky are projected onto the set, thus broadening the relationship between the different art forms. Scholtz was a choreographer who mirrored the structure, dynamics and intension of music. At the age of 26, Scholtz became artistic director and choreographer of the Zurich Ballet and six years later he founded the Leipzig Ballet, where he remained until his death.